‘The Grand Inquisitor’ is a short story that appears in one of Dostoevsky’s most famous works, ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, but it is often read independently due to its standalone story and literary significance. In the tale, Jesus comes to Seville during the Spanish Inquisition and performs miracles but is soon arrested and sentenced to be burned. The Grand Inquisitor informs Jesus that the church no longer needs him as they are stronger under the direction of Satan. ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ is incredibly interesting and compelling for its philosophical discussion about religion and the human condition. The main debate put forth in the poem is whether freedom or security is more important to mankind, as an all-powerful church can provide safety but requires its followers to abandon their free will. This tale remains remarkably influential among philosophers, political thinkers, and novelists from Friedrich Nietzsche and Noam Chomsky to David Foster Wallace and beyond. Dostoevsky’s writing is both inventive and provocative in this timeless story as the reader is free to come to their own conclusions. ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ should be read by anyone interested in philosophy or politics. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a famous Russian writer of novels, short stories, and essays. A connoisseur of the troubled human psyche and the relationships between the individuals, Dostoevsky’s oeuvre covers a large area of subjects: politics, religion, social issues, philosophy, and the uncharted realms of the psychological. He is most famous for the novels ‘Crime and Punishment’, ‘The Idiot’, and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. James Joyce described Dostoevsky as the creator of ‘modern prose’ and his literary legacy is influential to this day as Dostoevsky’s work has been adapted for many movies including ‘The Double’ starring Jesse Eisenberg.

This new edition presents The Grand Inquisitor together with the preceding chapter, Rebellion, and the extended reply offered by Dostoevsky in the following sections, entitled The Russian Monk. By showing how Dostoevsky frames the Grand Inquisitor story in the wider context of the novel, this edition captures the subtlety and power of Dostoevsky's critique of modernity as well as his alternative vision of human fulfillment.

One of the most famous passages in modern literature reimagined in a graphic novel adaptation. Two acclaimed Russian artists have collaborated to create an original graphic novel adaptation of the most famous chapters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov: "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor." Ivan Karamazov, after protesting a God who allows innocents to suffer, recites for his brother Alyosha a poem he has written about Jesus' reappearance on earth during the Spanish Inquisition. One of the most famous passages in modern literature, this work raises important questions about free will, human nature, religion, power, and the radically subversive way of Jesus.

Crime and Punishment: Large Printby Fyodor DostoyevskyFrom the Russian master of psychological characterizations, this novel portrays the carefully planned murder of a miserly, aged pawnbroker by a destitute Saint Petersburg student named Raskolnikov, followed by the emotional, mental, and physical effects of that action. Translated by Constance Garnett.

[Dedicated by the Translator to those sceptics who clamour so loudly, both in print and private letters-"Show us the wonder-working 'Brothers, ' let them come out publicly-and we will believe in them!"] [The following is an extract from M. Dostoevsky's celebrated novel, The Brothers Karamazof, the last publication from the pen of the great Russian novelist, who died a few months ago, just as the concluding chapters appeared in print. Dostoevsky is beginning to be recognized as one of the ablest and profoundest among Russian writers. His characters are invariably typical portraits drawn from various classes of Russian society, strikingly life-like and realistic to the highest degree. The following extract is a cutting satire on modern theology generally and the Roman Catholic religion in particular. The idea is that Christ revisits earth, coming to Spain at the period of the Inquisition, and is at once arrested as a heretic by the Grand Inquisitor. One of the three brothers of the story, Ivan, a rank materialist and an atheist of the new school, is supposed to throw this conception into the form of a poem, which he describes to Alyosha-the youngest of the brothers, a young Christian mystic brought up by a "saint" in a monastery-as follows: (-Ed. Theosophist, Nov., 1881)] "Quite impossible, as you see, to start without an introduction," laughed Ivan. "Well, then, I mean to place the event described in the poem in the sixteenth century, an age-as you must have been told at school-when it was the great fashion among poets to make the denizens and powers of higher worlds descend on earth and mix freely with mortals... In France all the notaries' clerks, and the monks in the cloisters as well, used to give grand performances, dramatic plays in which long scenes were enacted by the Madonna, the angels, the saints, Christ, and even by God Himself. In those days, everything was very artless and primitive. An instance of it may be found in Victor Hugo's drama, Notre Dame de Paris, where, at the Municipal Hall, a play called Le Bon Jugement de la Tres-sainte et Gracieuse Vierge Marie, is enacted in honour of Louis XI, in which the Virgin appears personally to pronounce her 'good judgment.' In Moscow, during the prepetrean period, performances of nearly the same character, chosen especially from the Old Testament, were also in great favour. Apart from such plays, the world was overflooded with mystical writings, 'verses'-the heroes of which were always selected from the ranks of angels, saints and other heavenly citizens answering to the devotional purposes of the age. The recluses of our monasteries, like the Roman Catholic monks, passed their time in translating, copying, and even producing original compositions upon such subjects, and that, remember, during the Tarter period!... In this connection, I am reminded of a poem compiled in a convent-a translation from the Greek, of course-called, 'The Travels of the Mother of God among the Damned, ' with fitting illustrations and a boldness of conception inferior nowise to that of Dante. The 'Mother of God' visits hell, in company with the archangel Michael as her cicerone to guide her through the legions of the 'damned.' She sees them all, and is witness to their multifarious tortures. Among the many other exceedingly remarkably varieties of torments-every category of sinners having its own-there is one especially worthy of notice, namely a class of the 'damned' sentenced to gradually sink in a burning lake of brimstone and fire. Those whose sins cause them to sink so low that they no longer can rise to the surface are for ever forgotten by God, i.e., they fade out from the omniscient memory, says the poem-an expression, by the way, of an extraordinary profundity of thought, when closely analysed. The Virgin is terribly shocked, and falling down upon her knees in tears before the throne of God, begs that all she has seen in hell-all

In this provocative, popular history of the Inquisition, bestselling author Kirsch illustrates how the 12th century's sinister brand of sanctioned terror has served as the chief model for torture in the West today. color photo insert.

Fyodor Dostoevsky has often been regarded as a prophet who foretold the rise of totalitarian socialism in Russia. But his political vision had deep spiritual roots. Dostoevsky's searing struggle with the question of God is famously presented in the legend of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov.